About as Random as It Gets...

OK, despite now having internet service at home (finally), life seems to have had other designs on my time than blogging, reading all y'all's (that is the correct plural form, after all) blogs and commenting thusly. So, to get back in the game (and in the habit), I've decided to play along with the blessedly non-tag form of "8 Random Facts About You". Those of you who really know me will understand I am one of my favorite subjects anyway!!

So, via just about everyone that I read these days - Random Stuff about your Ambassador.

The Rules:

Players start with 8 random facts about themselves.

Those who are tagged should post these rules and their 8 random facts.

Players should tag eight other people and notify them that they have been tagged. (I will not tag you for this - if you read this and want to play along, go for it - just let me know so I can post a link to your fabulocity!)


1. I am a Master Procrastinator. I have this absurd internal clock/calendar that allows me to sense the last possible moment to start a project, return a call/email, pay a bill, etc. That's not to say that I am always behind on things - quite to the contrary. The OCD Yankee in me (the last vestiges of the Northerner left in me after 16 years below sea level in the Crescent City) refuses to be late for meetings, hates the idea of having to pay any kind of late fee, and cringes at the thought of my own lapsing social graces. This is all a matter of timing.

2. Dovetailing on #1, I am oddly intolerant of other people's shortcomings. For example: I think less of someone if they are chronically late, etc. This is a part of what also makes me hideously capably of fostering and maintain a long-term grudge. Talk about wasted energy...

3. My worst first date ended with me having to rush to a CVS for Benadryl. Not only was the guy a total ass, but I had an allergic reaction to something in my food - blotches, labored breathing, puffiness. It was actually a great way out of a really painful dinner. Turns out there is something in Capers - either the seed or the pickling process - that more than just doesn't agree with me. Damn that Salad Nicoise!!

4. I withdrew from college halfway through my sophmore year, and never went back. Not because I wasn't good at it - I left with a 3.5 GPA. I just hated it. Music School was entirely subjective, and I was vehemently unwilling to play the game the professors were expecting me to in order to get a degree I no longer wanted. Faced with a room full of squeaky clarinets, I wanted to chew my arm off. I was shocked a couple years ago when a guy I'd dated for almost a month declared that it was over because he was unable to reconcile the fact that I had not gotten my degree and had no interest in going back to finish. (He's a Biology professor at Tulane University and hated the fact that a college dropout could beat him at Scrabble, Trivial Pursuit, etc.).

5. My freakish memory has allowed me to retain the music and lyrics to close to 2000 songs of every variety (showtunes, opera aria, art songs, international folk songs, jingles, pop tunes, big band standards...it's all filed away up there). Add to this the lines (not just mine, but most of the cast) for nearly every stage show I've done in my adult life. This ability also gave me a great foot in the door for traveling teaching grade school - after having the the students introduced themselves, I could often remember all of them for the rest of the class period. (Now, I just want the voices to stop!)

6. I hesitate to put this in print as I may be inviting disaster, but I've never lost my wallet or keys...ever. It's part of the little daily rituals I go through to make sure I always know where they are. I've also never been pick-pocketed, but a very beautiful gift that SMID gave me was stolen when the guy (Jim) I was kindly renting a room out to got crapface drunk one night, brought home a hustler who stole Jim's laptop (the one he was working on his doctoral thesis on, but had not backed up), his passport (Canadian, ya know), and my wonderful ring that SMID brought all the way back from South Africa for me...oh, and then the guy rode off on Jim's bike...It breaks my heart that this ring is gone from me...

7. I am one of the most emotional people I know. I have been known to cry at the Hallmark commercials (you know, the one where the little boy thinks his big brother won't make it home in time from college for Christmas Eve?), laugh to be heard over an entire audience in a crowded theatre, quick to anger and just as quick to get over it. I can sing at a piano bar, so absorbed in the music and the moment that I don't realize there are tears streaming down my face. I have music and movies that I use when I need to get that kind of emotional release - things that I know will vicerally move me - happy, sad, angry, elated, scared. Exhausting, yes...but so alive!

8. I watch much more TV than anyone in my life knows. I've wasted more hours than I care to admit on the tube. It's not like I have to be home at a specific time to watch this week's episode of WhatEverCrap...I come home, I turn it on...and veg.

And now you know...

So, if you'd like to play, go for it and have fun. Hope you enjoyed reading!